


as pilgrims on the scorching sands

by noahfronsenburg



Series: montgomery [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: 5 Times, Ambiguously Canon Compliant, As you wish, Blood and Injury, Developing Relationship, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Graphic Description, Identity Unreveal, M/M, May/December Relationship, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Poorly Kept Secrets
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2018-12-03
Packaged: 2019-09-06 03:21:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,945
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16824097
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noahfronsenburg/pseuds/noahfronsenburg
Summary: “Is that all?”(five times alphinaud knew he was being lied to, and one time he was told the truth)





	as pilgrims on the scorching sands

**Author's Note:**

> **so pilgrims on the scorching sand,**  
>  beneath a burning sky,  
> long for a cooling stream at hand,  
> and they must drink or die.
> 
> [189, montgomery](https://youtu.be/qda0HETbM_0)
> 
> [FANART??? by @ryoko126](https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNPK9PDWnQMALrvbrpRF1ZfCBsOXxmSxF2IilmhITkjqBbpZcM4WWTssCuBvXIngA?key=MGxOUkFGVS1OV09Kb2pobVgxd05wUXlNSjZEejBn)

i.

Alphinaud has been traveling with Shadowhunter for three nights before he joins the other man on patrol for his midnight to dawn shift on watch. He has not reached the end of his growth spurt yet, so Shadowhunter is still a head and almost shoulders taller than he is, and he does not slow his steps for Alphinaud to keep up. They leave a line of footprints stretching back over the dunes in the aetherdust behind them, two of Alphinaud’s to every one of Shadowhunters. They are halted, at the end of one circuit, by a howling storm, and together they take shelter in the lee of an old, decrepit Allagan creation.

Without a muffler of his own, Alphinaud is borrowing one, and it is the same distinctive red as Shadowhunter’s own—like as not, his backup. It doesn’t fit him properly, since he’s so much slimmer, but it works, and he is thankful for it as he breathes in dust-free air. His hood functions fine as a mask, slitted as it is, and between the two of them he is able to get around. It is only once they begin to poke around their makeshift shelter that he stops paying attention to patrol, and instead pays attention to their surroundings, and soon he finds himself holding up his carbuncle for light to see in, peering up at some of the inscriptions on the artefact he’s currently standing within.

“The Scions have always professed being against using Allagan technology.” Shadowhunter says, from just behind him. Alphinaud doesn’t turn around or jump—he heard the footsteps in the sand—but hums low in his throat, tilts Moonstone up a little bit so that her light can reach deeper into the bowels of the instruments.

“We’re against abusing it. Allagan relics certainly can come in handy sometimes, if you are careful with them. As long as we’re here, I thought to make the best of the opportunity. How long do you think the dust storm will last?”

Shadowhunter grunts. “Two bells. Maybe three.” The Burn is not a hospitable place; even with goggles, muffler, hoods, and gloves, the aethersand gets into everything. Breathe too much and it will kill you; Alphinaud finds himself almost longing for Garlean-issue helmeted air filters. Even if that _is_ what seems to be encased in the mufflers that Shadowhunter’s team wears. “Why?”

“Hold her,” Alphinaud replies. He turns around and finds himself almost in Shadowhunter’s arms, the older man standing right behind him, leaning one hand on the dip of the bulkhead above them. In the light glinting from Moonstone the eyemask he wears for protection against the sand perched nearly flat against his face looks paler and crueler, and it takes a moment for Alphinaud to see past it. This time he _is_ startled, but he covers well enough, sticking out Moonstone toward the man. “I need better light. I’m going to take down the inscriptions, see if they can be translated later.”

Shadowhunter does not move, what little is visible of his face unreadable, but he takes Moonstone after a moment. He seems consternated as she wiggles slightly around in his hands until he has her under the arms. “She’s...heavy,” he says, his voice laced with surprise, and Alphinaud notices, glad he can hide his smile, that Shadowhunter’s rough voice cracks on the second word. “Will she not...vanish?”

“She’s sustained by my magick, you’ve nothing to fear. You can’t erase aether simply by contact. And yes, she’s heavy. I fear she eats too much. Now, is that all?” Alphinaud raises an eyebrow at the other man, although it is hidden behind his goggles. Shadowhunter does not quite seem to understand, so Alphinaud gestures above. He reaches into his coat to pull charcoal and his pad of paper from his pockets. “If so, just up there please, if you would be so kind. Your reach will get closer than mine.”

“There is a _lamp_ ,” Shadowhunter says, but sticks his arms out nevertheless. He seems vaguely disconcerted by the idea of using a carbuncle as a torch. “Can’t you cast a light?”

“I could,” Alphinaud agrees, staring upward and starting to write down everything he can read, “But she’ll react to aether traces if there are any.” As he says it, Moonstone starts sniffing at Shadowhunter’s sleeve, and gets a bit of it in her teeth and starts to gnaw. He seems, if anything, even more distressed by this turn of events, but he’s avoiding shaking her too much. Alphinaud just ignores her, continues writing. “By her behavior, I can ascertain that this is likely completely dead. Nevertheless, I’m sure the Ironworks can make good use of this, if nothing else.”

He doesn’t imagine Shadowhunter stiffening, but neither does he comment on it. He pretends he to not notice and keeps taking his notes. He debates pressing on, seeing what will happen, but leaves it. Lets Shadowhunter decide if he will take the bait.

And he does, eventually.

“What would Garlond’s pet project want with scribbles?”

There it is.

“He mentioned to me an interest in just about anything that will keep Nero busy.”

It’s Shadowhunter’s turn to pretend he’s uninterested, his nonchalance feigned well enough to almost be believable. _Almost._ “You Scions never fail to be interesting,” he says at last, which is a neither here-nor-there reply, that says nothing and too much all at once, and Alphinaud files that information away for later, to pick over at his leisure. Without his helmet, Alphinaud is finding that Shadowhunter is as near to an open book as Alisaie is. They remain in silence until he is finished with the inscription, and he puts the notebook away, takes Moonstone back from the other man and sets her on the ground, where she immediately twines between Shadowhunter’s ankles.

“She’s taken a liking to you,” Alphinaud says, as they return to the outside of the relic. Alphinaud leans against it as Shadowhunter takes a moment to crouch down, moving with a difficulty that Alphinaud has grown used to seeing in older soldiers, the slow ease of old wounds. He pulls free his gunblade and starts to oil it where he sits, popping open the chamber and letting the wind blow the sand away from the bullets within as he picks fine dust out of the inner workings. Moonstone follows him, and sits down directly in front of Shadowhunter, her head tilted to the side as she watches him, her ears pricked attentively.

“She’d best not,” Shadowhunter says, and doesn’t elaborate. Alphinaud does not need him to in order to fill in the second half of the sentence, and he just leans back against the relic, arms crossed, and shuts his eyes.

Lets it hang.

ii.

Two days after Maxima leaves, they are ambushed by a small raiding party, attacking them now that their numbers have been thinned. During the fight Alphinaud is knocked down by a ceruleum explosion, left open as Moonstone rushes to his defense.

Shadowhunter beats her there; he takes a long, ugly gash across his left side and then acts as if nothing is the matter, binding it until they are safely back at his camp. Afterward, he makes his excuses and vanishes. Among the four of them, he is the only one injured, so it is not hard to track him down, leaving their companions at the watch fire.

Alphinaud finds Shadowhunter in his tent, stripped to the waist with the door almost shut to keep any lingering dust out. “May I?” he says, from the doorway, and the older man looks up at him, frozen.

It takes Alphinaud a moment to realize that the expression on Shadowhunter’s face is _fear_.

The cut is an ugly one; the blade that caught him was jagged and thin, and it sliced neatly to bite past skin to muscle below. Blood is dried and caked around the wound, and Alphinaud belatedly realizes that Shadowhunter wears red for a reason.

Like a wounded predator, he hides that which may weaken him.

“What do you want, boy?” Shadowhunter snaps, and it’s the first that he’s called Alphinaud _boy_ in some days. Since he has not been asked to leave, however, Alphinaud ducks down and tugs off his boots to not track in dirt, then steps inside the tent, pulls off his gloves and rolls his sleeves up.

Shadowhunter is, by his best guess (unfamiliar with Garlean physiology as he is) in something like later middle age, and he carries himself like it. His injuries do not heal with the ease that they once did; his clothes are belted like he has lost a great deal of weight, and quickly. The older man has the same dozens of scars as any other warrior does, gathered upon the battlefield, but now that Alphinaud can see all of Shadowhunter’s torso, there are a great deal more than simply old sword scars and bullet marks.

Into his right forearm and chest are burned the outlines of armor, raised, pink welts that mark a past he no longer acknowledges. Vambraces, a gorget, a breastplate, gauntlets, shiny and raw, raised as ghost-impressions. They’re old scars—older than his weight loss—and discolor his entire torso. Where there is not the remnants of old metal now permanently embossed on Shadowhunter’s skin, there are other scars, other reminders of a previous life best left forgotten. His left arm, below the elbow, is a mangled lump of burns and scar tissue, twisted and painfully thin, practically just skin and bones. Having now seen it without the bandages, Alphinaud is stunned that Shadowhunter can even move it.

Alphinaud can spot more, leading below the top of Shadowhunter’s waistband, and does not comment on them as he sits down beside the other man. “Lift your arm,” he says, setting his book on his lap and turning to the page he wants, the fingers of his left hand atop the elemental ink and the fingers of his right half an inch above the gash in Shadowhuner’s skin. He is _hot_ , radiating heat; this close, Alphinaud can smell the musk of his sweat and the tang of his blood.

Alphinaud begins healing, and keeps his eyes on the cut so as to not meet Shadowhunter’s gaze. He feels sometimes that he is starting to skirt too close to the edge of some great, yawning chasm, waiting for him, hungry. “You’re a young man of many talents.” Shadowhunter says at last, his voice pitched quiet, still strained with pain. There is an odd quality to it—like he, as much as Alphinaud, does not wish to break this strange spell that hangs in tension between them. “To use your conjury so freely.”

“In your company I find myself gaining facility. My sister has never had much aptitude for the healing arts, so I pursued them with zeal for a time, attempting to find expertise. I never did, but I am a deft enough hand, at least at simple tasks. If I can help keep this from festering, it is the least I can do.”

“Rarely are there healers in our company,” Shadowhunter admits. “It’s been...some years.” His voice is hesitant; the words slow. The injury is already closing, skin healing, the red of infection starting to fade back to the brown of Shadowhunter’s skin. He remains patient and still, and Alphinaud has to bite back the desire to comment on his practice with healers. What experience would a Garlean have with healers unless—

“A potion will probably do the rest.”

“I can stitch it shut,” Alphinaud offers, when he lowers his hand from the gash. “If you would wish it. I’ve some small skill with needle and thread, and it seems only sensible. I am here, after all.” Without thinking he lifts his hand, touches the edge of the cut. The skin is still hot to the touch, edemic and swollen, and Shadowhunter hisses, but does not look away. Does not move. Does not ask Alphinaud to move.

At some point their eyes met, and neither of them has looked away.

“You took this protecting me,” Alphinaud says, his mouth dry. He does not lift his hand. “It seems...only sensible I fix it.”

“You said that already,” Shadowhunter replies. “There's no expectation you do any such thing. The healing is appreciated, but—“

“I want to,” Alphinaud says, his voice a whisper. He flattens his hand over the side of Shadowhunter’s chest. Their size difference is enough that when he does it, the tips of his fingers brush the scars from what must have been the gorget Shadowhunter once wore while the heel of his palm does not even reach the very injury he came here to heal. Alphinaud loves it; he loves how his magic could bring Shadowhunter to his knees when the man’s body could smother his own. “I want to help you, as you have helped me.”

“It is not asked,” Shadowhunter’s voice is a whisper so dry and low that it vaishes, falling into their breathing. Alphinaud has lost track, too focused, but at some point Shadowhunter grasped his elbow, and his fingers and palm are hot. He can wrap his hand all the way around Alphinaud’s wrist with room extra to spare. It makes something inside Alphinaud lurch. “You owe me nothing.”

“I _want_ to,” Alphinaud says again, and leans forward, pressing his weight into Shadowhunter’s chest, his book left forgotten the moment that their lips meet.

He says it again, into the kiss, _harder_ , fingers grasping the back of Shadowhunter’s broad neck, filling his body with aether, pouring more into the cut to see it closed. “I _want to_.”

“You shouldn’t,” Shadowhunter says, but does not pull away, does not push Alphinaud aside.

Shadowhunter draws him closer, with that one broad hand around his elbow, and Alphinaud does not need to ask why he shouldn’t, because he is neither foolish nor blind, and he knows what he is courting, and knows too what will happen if he courts awry.

iii.

When Shadowhunter says “You do not know who you invite to your bed,” what he means is _You should not trust me._

When Alphinaud replies, “Is that all?” what he means is _I have known greater monsters_.

Alphinaud does not need spoken words to know the truth that hides beneath his skin.

iv.

Alphinaud is not weak, but neither is he made of stone. He is a scholar, a student of arcanima, not meant for the front lines. But four bodies means they must all pull a weight equal to more than their own roles, because none of them are trained adventurers. Alphinaud has some aptitude for magic, yes, but he is not his sister.

He is, in his heart of hearts, a politician.

He bandies words better than he bandies spells, and always has. At a negotiating table Alphinaud can take hits and come back swinging, but on the battlefield a single punch from a magitek sends him flying like a ragdoll attached to a rope, and when he hits the ground he does not get back up.

Words cannot hurt him, but steel and ceruleum certainly can.

Breath knocked from his lungs, stars in his vision, Alphinaud presses his hands below his diaphragm. One, perhaps two, ribs are broken. He is almost certain he cracked one of his vertebrae—a solid iron arm to the stomach will do that when you wear no armor.

Moonstone is atop his chest in moments, vibrating, aether filling him as he starts to heal himself with her help, but Shadowhunter is not far behind her, gasping, “Alphinaud.”

It is the first time that Shadowhunter has said his name in daylight.

Shadowhunter is out of breath. He is not a young man any more, although he is in better shape than many, but his stamina is not the same as it once was, and four against a cohort is not nearly enough. He has a graze across his forehead, blood flecking the side of his face, and sweat has matted his hair down, plastered it to his skin. Like this, soaked as it is, Alphinaud can see how dark it must have been when he was a younger man.

In his hand, _Heirsbane_ drips with blood, and ceruleum burns powder the sleeve of his coat, dust the bandages that cover the burns that have mangled his left arm. He glances at Alphinaud’s fingers, clutching his coat, then at his face. Shadowhunter pushes his hair out of his face twice in that brief span, shoving his bangs out of the way. It is too long, too awkwardly grown out from what it had to have been before, and Shadowhunter has clearly never taken either time nor effort to invest in learning to cut it or care for it properly himself since. Instead, it really just looks like he’s grown it, and then hacked at it with a knife if it’s gotten too long.

Typical.

Shadowhunter scowls, shoving it out of his face again, making as if to push to his feet. He wobbles, for just a moment, and it is a greater tell of the current state of their party than any words could speak. “We need you back up. This is your damn fool mission.” Alphinaud half-laughs, and grabs for the tail end of his braid, waving the other man back.

“Wait,” he says, gesturing Shadowhunter closer. He pauses, frowns, kneels back down. Alphinaud gestures him closer until he bends over, and then ties the ribbon into the other man’s hair, pulling the longest sections of it out of his face to the back of his head, granting him the slightest little puft of a ponytail.

He looks deeply consternated by this turn of events, and touches his bared forehead, looks ticked when his fingers come away bloody.

“For you,” Alphinaud says, still wheezing a little in mirth. “A good luck charm. Until I can stand.” Shadowhunter gives him a blindsided look; one that Alphinaud finds reminds him almost _too_ much of some of the other Garleans he knows. “It’s my sister’s,” Alphinaud adds, as if that clarifies it, and he wishes he had the breath to give the fullest explanation, to say what he means, but what comes out is:

“Take care of it.”

Shadowhunter’s expression changes, shuts off, shuts down, and once again, he is unreadable, inexplicable, a lock to which Alphinaud is finding he only has half the keys needed to open. “You should know better than to trust such sentiment,” Shadowhunter snaps, as he leaves, and Alphinaud finds he does not have energy nor breath to yell after him, and remind him that Shadowhunter can hardly blame Alphinaud for what _he himself_ has already done.

v.

It is late afternoon that they stop, splitting apart from their two companions, who go on ahead on some quickly concocted errand, scouting, taking point. The burden is one that does need to be lifted—Alphinaud is no adventurer, and Shadowhunter is not either a young nor a well man—but Alphinaud is also not a fool.

He knows that they have been left behind for another reason, and he can guess as to what it might be.

They sit, Shadowhunter leaning against a fallen boulder, Alphinaud crouched on the ground, tearing apart jerky with his fingers and chewing on it as he watches ahead, the silence hanging heavily on them both, for he is waiting, patiently, to see if Shadowhunter will take the plunge, make the jump. Or if he will keep sidestepping the issue, pretending it is not there to be seen, that Alphinaud hasn’t had his number from the moment they met.

“For a Scion, you seem not to be unduly curious as to who keeps your company,” Shadowhunter says at last.

Alphinaud is glad that his back is to the other man, because he is rolling his eyes.

“I have learned,” Alphinaud says, when he has finished his mouthful of jerky, “To accept that not all questions will be answered. You have your reasons for keeping your secrets, as do I. I would not presume to ask you for that which you do not want to give.”

“And yet you follow us, and trust an unknown in your bed? This bond is by luck, Alphinaud; not by permanent truce. Shared enemies will not always exist.” He can hear the scowl in Shadowhunter’s face, and his footsteps approach, crunching in the undergrowth.

 _Heirsbane_ hits the ground point-first beside Alphinaud’s knee, and trembles, slightly, from the force taken to bury it into the loam.

“It is foolishness itself to trust an unknown variable. Shadows stalk us everywhere; they haunt our every step. They are watching us. But you would trust without question, even when simply offered some respite?”

“Is that all?” Alphinaud interrupts. Shadowhunter closes his mouth so abruptly that Alphinaud hears his teeth click. He can feel the vibration in the other man; like a plucked string, he is stunned, but on the verge of _something_. Alphinaud looks up at him, meets his eyes, pale as the dust in the Burn where they met.

For the _second_ time.

“I say again, _is that all_?” Alphinaued repeats it, with a greater deal of emphasis, leaning into each word individually. Shadowhunter is staring at him with the strangest look on his face, one that Alphinaud hesitates to name as _blindsided_ , but perhaps that is the only appropriate term. Alphinaud raises his left hand, and sets it against the flat of _Heirsbane_ ’s blade. “Few Garleans fight with two-handed blades, you know. _Heirsbane_ is perhaps the only one that I can think of. If I am remembering correctly, Midas nan Garlond made it as a gift for Gaius van Baelsar; a gunblade absolutely unique in every way. Designed for one person to use, of course. They say that it was given its name after cutting down nine hopefuls to the Garlean throne.” As their gazes hold, neither of them blink. “I had, of course, assumed it to have been lost in the fall of the Praetorium.

“Cid looked for it, you know. He assumed, perhaps rightly, that his father’s construction would survive the flames, even if Gaius’ body did not.”

Shadowhunter is painfully still, now. Alphinaud stands and looks up, staring him in the eye. Removes his hand from _Heirsbane_. “Is that all?” He repeats, and all he can think of is a single afternoon, four years ago. The day that Gaius van Baelsar, perhaps without intention, saved the lives of the very three who would see his downfall. The first time he had heard those words.

_Is that all._

Shadowhunter, he notices, is smiling. Just very, very slightly; hidden at the corner of his mouth. “Is that all,” he repeats, almost in awe, and Alphinaud cocks an eyebrow back at him.

Shadowhunter pulls _Heirsbane_ from the ground and walks away without a word, leaving Alphinaud watching his retreating back, robed in old, fire-singed red.

\+ i.

When they are forced to lay their hand face up, to place their cards in full atop the table for all to read, Alphinaud finds himself reminded of the last time he saw his grandfather. A creature, locked in thrall, a ghost more aether and memory than reality, created by hope and prayer.

Even then, Louisoix had found a way through. He had taken his resources, and played his cards, and drawn, every time, the Spear.

And when Alphinaud is once again knocked down—

Shadowhunter sets a hand on his elbow, helps him stand. And says, in a voice that is a ghost of:

“Is that all?”

**Author's Note:**

> [the one and only time that gaius and alphinaud have previously met, it was in the IS THAT ALL???? cutscene.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38lo0jzhrL0)
> 
> im gay and this is the princess bride now. you cant change my mind.
> 
> tumblr/twitter @jonphaedrus, quick pick beta'd by @rethira


End file.
